Woman's Hour - Gaza, Dame Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter, Yasmin Khan, Cyberflashing

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

More than 100 international aid organisations and human rights groups are warning of mass starvation in Gaza and pressing for governments to take action. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Save the Children and Oxfam are among the signatories of a joint statement that says their colleagues and the people they serve are "wasting away". Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into the territory, rejected the organisations' statement and accused them of "serving the propaganda of Hamas". Yolande Knell is the BBC's Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem and joined Kylie Pentelow for more on the situation there.Dame Imelda Staunton, of Vera Drake and Harry Potter fame, and her daughter Bessie Carter, of Bridgerton fame, are starring as mother and daughter in Mrs Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw, currently in the West End. The play explores the morals of earning money from prostitution. They join Kylie to talk about the relevance of the play today, and tell us what’s it like acting on stage together for the first time in their careers.  Yasmin Khan is an award-winning food and travel writer. Her fusion of recipes and reportage combines the cuisines of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean and her new book, Sabzi: Fresh Vegetarian Recipes for Everyday, is her first meat-free cookbook. It was born out of overcoming the struggles of early motherhood and breastfeeding in particular. She tells Kylie about finding solace in the sustenance and soothing properties of the Iranian food she grew up on and adapting it for health and climate-conscious modern living.Cyber flashing is when a stranger sends an unsolicited explicit image or video. When musician Anna Downes was sent naked photos and videos by a man called Ben Gunnery last year, she reported it to the police, who took a statement but were very slow to take it any further. In May, he was found guilty of intentionally sending the images to cause alarm, distress and humiliation and earlier this week Gunnery was given a two-year community order, including 150 hours of unpaid work. If he re-offends he’ll be sent to prison. Anna Downes joins Kylie along with Nicola Goodwin from BBC Midlands Investigations team.Producer: Corinna Jones Presenter: Kylie Pentelow

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. Hello this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Coming up today she's one of our most well known and loved actresses and now she's back on stage. But this role is a little different for Dame Imelda Staunton as she's performing alongside her daughter Bessie and they play a mother and daughter with a somewhat complex and difficult relationship. I'm delighted to say they'll both be joining me in the studio to talk about what that's been like. And it got us thinking about those mother-daughter relationships. Have you worked together with your mum or your daughter? What was it like? A joy or a trial? Have you had to set some

ground rules to make it work? Or was it a natural and instinctive partnership? Do get in touch, you can text the programme. The number as always is 84844. On social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email us through our website or send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note using the number 03 700 100 444. Plus we hear from a woman who was the victim of cyber flashing where you're sent unwanted explicit images or videos. She tells us how it was a battle to get the police to take her seriously. And I'll be speaking to food and travel writer Yasmin Khan. Her new book is a first, which is entirely meat-free, still combining the cuisines of the Middle East and Eastern

Mediterranean. So I'll be speaking to her about why she's now exploring vegetarian food, and also about her own challenges feeding her young daughter. But first, more than 100 international aid organizations and human rights groups, a warning of mass starvation in Gaza and pressing for governments to take action. Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Save the Children, and Oxfam are among the signatories of a joint statement

that says their colleagues and the people they serve are wasting away. Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies into the territory, rejected the organisation's statement and accused them of serving the propaganda of Hamas. Yolanel is the BBC's Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem and I spoke to her just before we came on air and I started by asking her that given that we're seeing so many images of severely malnourished babies and children in Gaza and news coverage today, what is the latest there? Well, there are so many warnings coming through. We've also had the head of the World Health

Organization saying yesterday this is a man-made situation of mass starvation. Another comment from the UN, the hunger crisis has never been so dire and that really does match with what we hear anecdotally from the local freelancers who work with us and other contacts on the ground. People are saying that they are going often one, two, three days even without food. Even if you have money sent from outside they say there is very little food on the market left to buy and so we have people sent from outside, they say there is very little food on the market left to buy. And so we have people describing to us how they or members of their family have fainted from hunger. It's currently, you know, the middle of the summer. It's extremely

hot. They talk about their children crying themselves to sleep because they can't feed them. And one of my colleagues was saying that his two year old nephew back in Gaza no longer asks for food, but only for lentils because it's almost the only food that he knows. You mentioned the World Health Organization there, they've said almost a hundred thousand women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and need treatment as soon as possible, is that your understanding? What we've had for months, you know, different UN officials and aid groups, different experts warning that, you know, Palestinians are on the brink of famine. We've never had that

formally declared. Israel denies that there is famine in Gaza. But I mean, it's totally clear that even though Israel eased a two and a half month blockade on Gaza back in late May, we've really got only a trickle of aid getting in. And, you know, so that means that all Palestinians now are facing these catastrophic levels of hunger. And we've had hundreds of people killed by Israeli forces as they try to reach aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, this controversial American group backed by Israel, or as they're trying to reach convoys. And this is witnesses giving us these accounts. We've had them from health officials. And in general, you know, the UN is saying this as well. The military in Israel saying it only fired warning shots at people at these different sites. Now we've heard from the Hamas from Health Ministry as well just yesterday that another 10 people died of malnutrition in 24 hours. There's lots of sort of data that comes through to us. It's saying that the total number of such deaths has risen to 111 since the October the seventh attacks back in 2023 triggered this war.

It's really hard for us to say outside who exactly has died from hunger, but definitely we can say that, you know, the numbers of deaths that we're being told about by doctors from hunger or malnutrition, whatever, in the past few days has definitely increased. Let's hear from someone in Gaza now, Caroline Wellman, the MSF project coordinator in Gaza City. She spoke to Radio 4's PM last night. The situation we see here is desperate. Personally, I've never worked in a project where my own colleagues come to work not having eaten often for 24 or 48 hours. Of course, we see this as well in our patients. We have a malnutrition program for children under the age of five and for pregnant and lactating women.

We have 25 new patients enrolled in that program every single day. So there's over a thousand patients in that program and honestly in the one month that I've been here it was catastrophic when I arrived and I could not have imagined that now several weeks later it has only gotten worse. It's almost impossible to describe with words what we see here on a daily basis. We know for a fact that mainly children but that people are dying of malnutrition, every single person in Gaza is hungry. Of course it doesn't mean that every single person in Gaza is malnourished but so the numbers that we see of malnourished

people is increasing every day and indeed on top of that I speak on a daily daily basis with other parents who are desperately asking us for the therapeutic feeding supplements that we give children, but we cannot give them because the child is not malnourished yet. In the current circumstances, it is for all of these children a matter of time before they become malnourished. Due to the lack of supplies, we are not in a position at this moment to help children who are close to being malnourished, but it's indeed the situation is catastrophic, dystopian. Caroline Wallman from MSF there, who's based in Gaza City. The buzzing sound that you could hear there is the sound of a drone in the background. Yolanda is still with me.

Quite an account there from Caroline Wallman. What has been Israel's response to this? I mean, first of all, it's worth noting that we do not see the same images of malnourished children which are flooding international media in the Israeli media. And I think, you know, a lot of people really believe what is being said by Israeli officials. We had the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, who went to Gaza a day ago. He said, what's absolutely clear is the true obstacle to humanitarian relief is Hamas. Huge quantities of aid are flowing in, in conjunction with the UN and EU efforts agreed by Israel. He said Hamas loots the aid and prevents its proper distribution. And, you know, we've had the EU in particular sort of saying that its agreements on aid getting into Gaza have not been met by Israel.

The UN has been extremely critical. The UN has said that currently it's the Israeli authorities that are the sole decision makers on who, how and how much aid enters the strip, the type of supplies that go in, and it's saying that it's up against huge logistical challenges. We heard in that statement that came out a day ago from the international aid organisations that only on average 28 lorryloads of aid were being distributed inside Gaza. Now this is where Israel really comes out saying that they are, by security checks, clearing hundreds of lorryloads of aid, that there's more than 800 lorryloads of aid sitting inside the Gaza crossings at the moment. And they really sort of say it's the UN and international agencies responsibility to pick that up and distribute it. What we then hear back from the UN is just how difficult it is to coordinate

with the Israeli forces who are in control on the ground, to move through active hostilities, to travel on damaged roads. They say they're often forced to wait at these holding points, pass through areas that are controlled by criminal gangs. And they say that all too often as civilians when they approach UN trucks risk being shot at. So they're saying that they want to have from the Israeli military more of these guarantees that troops will not be present or will not open fire as they're passing along convoy routes and desperate people seeking life-saving

aid approach their lorries. They say they shouldn't, under those circumstances, be at risk of losing their lives. We know foreign reporters haven't been allowed into Gaza to see for themselves what is happening for the duration of this conflict. How do you find that? Is it increasingly challenging as things go on? I think understandably there's always this desire for verification. I think sometimes with telecommunications difficulties with just the people that we work with and that we're reaching out to being themselves extremely weak, extremely busy.

I feel that it's become even more difficult to get things verified from the ground, to get material fed out to us in just the past few days. You feel like you're sometimes operating in a bit of a fog and what makes this really frustrating is I've been in this region for more than a decade. You know since more than 15 years I've been regularly going into Gaza. It's only through the 21 months of this war that I have been prevented from going there as a foreign journalist. The Israeli military only allowed small numbers of journalists to come in on these very controlled military embeds. And so it means that you often have a lot of contacts, people that you can talk to

in regards to people that I know personally, that I trust and that I care about, that are now suffering in these really impossible conditions. And finally Yolande, what hope for ceasefire negotiations? So I mean at the moment there does seem to be this kind of critical point that we've moved towards. There have been talks going on actually for several weeks in Doha indirectly between Israel and Hamas on a new 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal and what gave people a lot of encouragement was news that the President Trump's Middle

East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was heading, he said he'd come back to the region only when a deal was ready to be signed, but he's not come back to the Middle East, but he was heading to Italy and supposed to meet the Israeli minister who oversees negotiations there. Also we heard a Qatari envoy. I mean, the White House has already said that this is a sensitive moment in talks. We know that Hamas has given a response to Israel on its amendments that it wants to the latest proposal that's on the table. The Israeli media are reporting that these do not go far enough

and questioning whether that meeting will take place between the US envoy and the Israeli minister. Definitely what we can say is there is at the moment huge international pressure. We've seen so many countries, nearly 30, demanding an end to this war. And these next few days are extremely important both in terms of what actually does happen in terms of ceasefire talks but also in terms of what's happening on the ground because even though we've heard there has been a little more aid that's allowed in certainly dozens more lorries

going through in the past day according to the Israeli body that controls the crossings saying that they were picked up these dozens of lorries by the UN and other agencies. I mean that is just a drop in the ocean compared to the needs on the ground. That was Yolan Nel there, the BBC's Middle East correspondent in Jerusalem. Now Mrs Warren's Profession is a play by George Bernard Shaw written in 1893 which explores the morals of earning money from prostitution. The play stars Dame Imelda Staunton and her real-life daughter Bessie Carter playing the eponymous Mrs Warren and her daughter. Before we hear from them, let's hear a little bit of the play.

Do you think my way of life would suit you? I doubt it. Your way of life? What do you mean? a little bit of the play. at school. Don't be a fool, child. That's all you have to say on the subject, is it, Mother? Don't! Keep asking me questions like that. Hold your tongue. You, your way of life indeed. What next? Your way of life will be what I choose, so it will. I've been noticing these airs in you ever since you got that...tripripos or whatever you call it. If you think I'm going to put up with it, you're mistaken. The sooner you find that out, the better.

Mother-daughter relations captured there in Mrs Warren's profession and we have the real-life mother and daughter here in Meldistawndon and Bessie Carter. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you and good evening. I mean, good morning. in. Thank you and good evening, I mean good morning. You have lots of choice I imagine for what parts you could play, Imelda. Can you tell me why you wanted to do this play in particular? Well it was actually our director Dominic Cook who suggested that Bess and I do this play and I sort of said, well I don don't know. No, I don't think so, because I did it years ago in Rep. I played Vivi, and I don't think I was very good,

and I don't think I knew what I was talking about, to be honest. But anyway, and I said, well, no, he said, read it again. So I read it again. I thought, oh, yes, okay. This is very relevant. And the chance to work with Bess, I thought, well, oh my goodness, that would be wonderful.

And also, it's a difficult piece. So, you know, I didn't want to just do something, just because we're mother and daughter, you know, we can do whatever we want. I thought, this is going to be hard work, and it has been, and therefore utterly rewarding in that respect. And Dominic, he's edited the play, and we do it in an hour and Dominic we've edited he's edited the play and we do it in an hour and 45 minutes it's straight through because George Bernard Shaw often is known as the long plays with a lot but actually I think we've made it very modern without losing any of its integrity and it's been utterly satisfying from my point of view to do.

Well Bessie I guess we better ask you. What's it been like? I imagine if I was like, hell. Yeah. No, it's the same really. I mean, you know, it was always sort of something I thought in the back of my mind, it would be so lovely to work with Mum. Obviously, Dominic Cook, his work is phenomenal.

And that was another reason. But the play, when I read it, I just, it's so shocking. It was written in 1893. You sort of can't believe it. And to have these two female characters at the helm that, you know, an Irish man wrote in 1893, talking about things that are still difficult and taboo to talk about. And it's, you know, a play of arguments, but at the heart you have a mother and daughter relationship, so I feel like everyone everywhere has a mother of some kind, so there is something that everyone can relate to. And like mum said, it was tricky to rehearse because it's so muscular and we're

not used to that anymore. What do you mean by that? You literally need muscle and stamina to get through the play. Get through a sentence. Get through a sentence. Which is last for 12 lines. Yeah, and we're so used to, I with you know television now or you know sound bites and small attention spans and actually what's been really moving is the audience's every show are listening and are really paying

attention which says to me that people want their attention to be taken from their phones from their busy lives we still want to engage with stories and forget about what you know what our lives are like outside. And that's been really rewarding. What's it actually been like being on stage together? Because, as you said, it must be quite tough because some of those scenes that you have together, they're very intense, aren't they? And you're arguing, you're shouting at each other. How is that when you've got that relationship, of course, off stage?

It's acting. I mean, we have a very good relationship and our relationship on stage is not good. And I mean, that is acting and that is... So I think it's probably easier to do those very raw scenes when you have a very easy and loving relationship. And also as actors there's something that happens where I feel like once we started working on it it just felt like we were just two actors of who were looking at how do we tackle this scene to tell the story correctly. But it's satisfying I mean when we look across and I see her eyes and like oh I have moments going oh that's mum but also the actress playing my mother. So it doesn't feel weird at all and that that is weird but it doesn't feel weird.

And also I think we feel that we're doing a play that really speaks to now and tackling a difficult subject, whether, you know, sex work is not talked about, but it's also about poverty. You know, why are people driven to it? It's to do with poverty and the society and the hypocrisy of society and all those things that Bernard Shaw was tackling back then. And you go, oh no nothing changes, which is a bit depressing obviously, but it feels, and all the feedback we're getting is it feels very fresh. It's not like this is an old-fashioned play with old-fashioned values. This is now and I suppose as human beings, you know, not a lot alters. People are greedy, people are selfish and people are poor. And

I think this play looks at all of that and you know we've been doing it now for quite a while. We've got three weeks to go. So we're still, you know, but we're still finding things in and we, I mean you came to see it yesterday and we had cameras in there, we're filming it for NT Live so more people will get to see it and I think you know with all stories and with all plays we're made to think about things from someone else's point of view and it surely, hopefully encourages empathy and that's what we all need and that's what is lacking in so many aspects of society. It's interesting you say that because at one point I was really feeling for the mother and then I was feeling for the daughter

and I didn't quite know where my loyalties lay which is, you know, quite an interesting... Well, I think that's what's so... it asks more questions rather than answering any of them and I always... I love theatre or films or whatever it is, art, that asks questions rather than tries to answer them. I think with this, it shows two sides of the arguments, you know, can you look the other way when you know where your money's coming from, but look where any money is coming from, it's all exploitative, you know, so it's, yeah,

I'm satisfied that we don't tell anyone what to think. Hopefully. Obviously, a lot of people will know you from all sorts of your acting roles in the past. You've also recently won an Olivia Award for Hello Dolly. What role is it, do you think, that has got you the most attention over the years or maybe the one that you're most recognised for? Well, I mean, there's various things, but, you know, originally it was Vera Drake, which is the Mike Lee film that I did, playing an abortionist there,

and that was a very contentious piece of work, and that got a lot of attention, quite rightly, for the issues that that brought up. And then you go to the other end of the spectrum and you go to do films, of course it's Harry Potter. And I suppose what I like about that is that Harry Potter is about good and evil and that good is surely the stronger force. But then you have people coming up and saying, oh, my child listens to you doing the Gruffalo. So it's all different things. And you have to allow people the need for them to say,

oh, I watch you in this, that, and the other. So it doesn't matter what you're made famous for, but what you must do, I think, with any bit of recognition is use it and use it in a good way for charities, I think with any bit of recognition is use it and you know use it in a good way to for charities I think and that's all really it's any useful. And Bessie you grew up obviously with your mother but also your father Jim Carter so an acting family. What was that like? I guess you don't know any different. I don't know any different. That's it. I don't know any different. It was felt very normal to me

because it just was what my life sort of was. But there's nothing really to report on that. I mean, it was just weird because I just loved acting. I mean, I did all the school plays, I did all the NYT, all of those things. And it was just weirdly the exact same thing I loved doing as well. So I don't know whether that was osmosis or just fate. But yeah. But also I think you know, you know going to drama school was a great thing for you to do because you know one, you know what we never wanted to do was oh you know just slip into the business darling you know because we can. That's what I mean is that because I loved it, it was it was I wanted to train

and I wanted to do those extra-curriculum things. And also I think the blessing was going to Guildhall which was my own place. It was my own sort of experience and that was the best training. I had the best three years. Was there a point where you thought we'd really rather Bessie not go into acting and pursue something else? No, not at all. I think seeing her as Henry

the Eighth when she was ten, I think that gave me everything I needed to know. She had a beard, not her own, and it was, you know, I thought, oh hang on a minute, there's a little something there. But also because I guess you both had it as a very viable job and career, you sort of knew that it could could work whereas I think parents who maybe don't have any experience in that industry if their child wants to go into it might be more cautious but because it was a sort of viable thing I think we just at no point did I doubt it. And also I think we're I think three of us are quite realistic about the job and and you know I think we made it very clear that you know it isn't always great and and if you can put up with that fair enough and if you

can't get out. Do you Bessie ever think that you do people think that maybe you've had kind of a leg up because you're because of what your mom and dad do? Well I realized quite early on that I will never know if they do think that or not, because I can't know. So I know that I haven't in a way. So that's the sort of thing that I just know and feel better for because I believe in my own trajectory and I'm hungry for having my own career. And actually, I had a drama school teacher say to me, you are your own entity, trust that. And I was like, oh yeah.

So I sort of never know if people will think that, but I can't control that. So why spend time on it? And of course people might know you from Bridgerton as well. You've had your own success. You're also in A Mitford Sisters. Outrageous. I'm so proud of Outrageous and I want everyone to see it. It's about the Mitford Sisters, who are such an interesting and very, very troublesome family. And it's

the first time they've ever been dramatised. So yeah, so I'm playing Nancy Mitford in that, which has just come out on you, which you can stream for free. There we go. We've got the promo. Are you, Emelda, how do you feel about Bess's career path and how she's done? Well, really excited because also she's much more than, you know, when I was growing up doing it, I just went to rep theatre, did that, then I got another job there. And Bessie has written, she's produced, so her vision is much wider than mine and she's hungry for all sorts of things, getting projects off the ground, not sitting at home going, I wonder if anyone will give me a job. That's not in her makeup at all. So I'm so excited and

so proud that she's got many, many arms to her, you know, to her career. And what about your dad, Bessie? Does he feel left out at the moment? He's so content in the garden. He's got his garden. No, I think he's really proud. I mean it's just a really nice moment I think for us to just get to work together and he's very happily sitting and watching and not wanting to be involved in any way. He did say that when he was sitting there watching the show he said, ah there's my pension. He's fine. No, no he's absolutely fine. This is so unusual and in a way when you're in something like that, you know, you're doing it, you can't go, isn't it great, you're in the eye of the storm so

you're just doing the job. But you know I know when it's over I'll go, we did that and it was hard, it was hard do and and I'm very proud that we managed to pull it off hopefully. We've been asking our listeners about their experiences of working mother and daughter relationships I'm just gonna read a couple out so this one here says my daughter and I have worked together for 11 years she worked with me when I had my business and now I work with her in her business we've never argued she has a nail business in Glasgow and she trained me how to be a nail artist and I now have an excellent work-life balance.

I love that. Do you, Imelda, learn from Bessie? Oh gosh, yes. I mean, absolutely. I remember years ago I was doing some play and Bessie was, I don't know, you were 14 or 15 and she gave me a really good note in the show and I thought, well, try that. And it worked. I thought, oh, thanks for that. So I think you should respect each other's work ethic and you respect their talent and if they've got something to say, just listen to it. So yes, I'm all for that. And what about the other way around?

Totally. Totally. I think there's this weird taboo about actors shouldn't give other actors notes. And it's not about giving each other notes, but it's about going, what works best in this moment? And we're very good. And that's a new thing for me to learn with a scene partner. I could go, listen, I think we should try this because I think it would serve the story better. So I've definitely learnt that more on this job than any other. This one here says, my mum and I worked together two years ago to set up a tiny hotel in the French Alps. Very nice. We definitely had some big clashes but in the end we have a closer relationship because of it and

a successful business. I wouldn't do it again she says. I also wouldn't change anything and that's nice isn't it? Looking back and that's what you were saying you'll be able to look back and think about this time. Absolutely. We've only got three more weeks. Don't worry, I will talk to you afterwards. We're not going to walk away and never speak again. That's very good to hear. It's been so fantastic talking to you, Amalda Staunton and Bessie Carter. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now, listener week is fast approaching. Now all of the items that you hear on the programme all week are suggested by you.

So do keep your ideas coming in. I promise you that we read them all. Now last year we discussed topics as varied as our relationship to our tummies and sex in later life. Maybe you've got a curious hobby, an unusual job, personal dilemma maybe that you want answers for, you can't stop thinking about. Or maybe you just know somebody who's got a bit of a fascinating story and you want us to tell it. Get in touch with us all the usual ways you can text Womens Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate check with your network provider for exact costs and on social media it's at BBC Womens Hour and I should just mention that I didn't tell you that Mrs Warren's Profession, the play that Imelda and Bessie are starring in,

is on at the Garrick Theatre until August the 16th and will be screened in cinemas for National Theatre live later in the year. Now, Yasmin Khan is an award-winning food and travel writer. Her fusion of recipes and reportage has combined the cuisines of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean

and seen her travel the world. Now her new book, Sabzi – Fresh Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day, is her first totally meat-free cookbook in which she takes the Iranian food she grew up on and adapts it for our changing climate and her changing family. The book was partly born out of what she describes as a long, twisted and arduous journey towards motherhood. Well, to discuss all this, Yasmin is with me in the Women's House Studio. Good morning, Yasmin. Good morning. It's so nice to be back.

Lovely to see you. I want to start with the title of the book, Sabzi. Can you tell us what the meaning of that is and what it means to you? Yes. So, Sabzi is the Persian word for fresh leafy greens and it's also the Urdu word, the language of Pakistan, which means cooked vegetables. So when I first, and I'm half Iranian, half Pakistani, born in London, and when I first had the idea of a vegetarian cookbook, Sabzi just jumped out as a title because it encapsulates so much of the cooking

that I grew up with. Fresh, vegetable forward and full of greens. And we need to mention why you've decided to go down this route. I believe your husband was a bit of an influence in making it vegetarian. Tell me more about that. Yes, so my husband's vegetarian and I'm really passionate about kind of sharing family meals together and I really wanted to, when we started going out, recreate those dishes that I grew growing up with him and now for our daughter. So that set me on a little journey to make vegetarian versions of kind of classic Persian dishes, although throughout all my books I've really put an emphasis on modernizing recipes and making them more veg-focused. So yeah, he

was the influence and it's been wonderful actually. This is probably my most personal book. Most of my books are in reportage, as you mentioned. It's been really great to be able to share with my readers the food I cook at home. MS. And I'm a vegetarian myself and it's very nice to see that the recipes are very creative, but also not lacking because they're vegetarian. Does that make sense? That makes absolute sense. I think quite often when people think about vegetarian food, it can be quite light. You know, you see a lot of cookbooks and it's just like salad on the

cover. This book is full of hearty stews, great rice dishes, you know, a halloumi lasagna that's wonderful for sharing. Yes, it's abundant and filling and that's how I like to eat basically. The halloumi lasagna is the one that absolutely jumps out at me because yeah, it definitely feels like one that I'll be doing. And you mentioned the association between Sampsy and New Beginnings and for you that was becoming a mother two years ago, I believe, wasn't it? It's 14 months ago. We're still in months. Okay, 14 months. How did that kind of combine and why was that important for you to talk about? So I think last time I was on

Women's Hour actually, I spoke a lot about recurrent miscarriage. I ended up having five miscarriages on my path to becoming a mum. And one of the things that was quite important for me once I did become a mother is, and I think this happens a lot for women who really strive for motherhood. I ended up having quite a traumatic birth and having real problems with breastfeeding

and then like sliding into postnatal depression, something I never would have imagined having yearned for a baby for so much. And I now have found myself in a surprising role of being kind of somewhat of a fierce advocate for kind of supporting women in that early stage. And I think there can be so much undue pressure around feeding and how we feed our babies and the judgment and the shame. I desperately wanted to breastfeed, I always imagined I would. I thought I'd be this earth mama breastfeeding my child until she was three. It simply wasn't possible for me. And it continues to be a source of great pain and shame. And I wrote a piece recently for Vogue, where I explored this issue and the feedback I got from readers, I mean I was flooded with DMs and I realised that I wasn't the only one going through this. I

think there's too much stigma around infant feeding and that really needs to change. What was it that, what kind of, what message do you think needs to be out there if the messaging you think isn't quite right at the moment? I wish I could have gone back and told the person I was, you know, this time last year that there's no perfect way to feed a baby. Like the most important thing is that the baby thrives and that the mother thrives too. I think there is this unbelievable kind of concept that we all seem to internalise around maternal self-sacrifice. And I really realised that I'd internalised that. And feeding

I now can see is a lifelong journey with children. There will be toddler tantrums, there will be food cravings, there will be celebration cakes that they ask for every birthday. You know, what happens in that first six months does not determine your child's feeding journey. And I believe that so much. But I also just want to say, you know, as a mother, but also, you know, as someone who comes from the Middle East, it's really hard to be here today and kind of talk about infant feeding in the context of, you know, what you led with at the top of the news, the forced starvation of children in Gaza. And, you know, I believe it's a real moral failing that our government isn't doing more to

let aid in. You know, I was, I know the pain of what it's like not to be able to feed your baby. And I cry almost every day for the children of Gaza and the mothers who can't feed their babies. And it's unconscionable and aid needs to let in, the government needs to do more, the time for sanctions is gone, aid needs to go in, those babies need to be fed. It's an abomination. I can see you know that you feel very very strongly about this like so many people who are listening no doubt this morning and you know you've often been described as a human rights campaigner so I appreciate you sharing your opinion there. With your daughter in particular the turning point for you and your feeding journey came when you could actually

give her food and take her on that weaning journey. Tell me about what happened with that. Yes, yes, it really was. And yeah, I did get emotional there, but I'm not going to apologize for it. Of course not. No. Absolutely. You know, I've spent a lot of time in Israel and the Palestinian territories because of my former work as a human rights campaigner. And so, yes, my shift came when I started weaning. And that was the moment when all of a sudden I said, you know what, I am done listening to health professionals, reading books, listening to kind of influences. I'm just going to feed my baby how I want to and I'm going to trust

myself. I'm going to trust myself as a mum. So I decided that boiled steamed vegetables were really boring and who would want to eat that? I was feeding her chickpea curries from my book. I'm not just saying that, but from the book. I was giving her, I realised that she loved sour flavours so I'd make these kind of Persian stews with dried limes and saffrons and see her like suck away at them. And all of a sudden, I realized that actually feeding isn't just about sustenance, it is about connection. And I loved to this day, one of my favorite parts of my whole day is sitting down and watching my baby eat. And I'm starting, she's very small, but I'm starting to now get her in the kitchen, you know, to bring it back to the book. A lot of the recipes in the book, because I'm a new mom,

they're quite, you know, straightforward, easy to make quick. We made a really lovely like white bean stew last night with like fresh herbs. It's got like basil and lemon and smashed walnuts. It's just so incredible to now be able to share meals with her. And again, it just reinforces that fact that if we're able to relax and enjoy our time feeding our children, then they're more likely to enjoy feeding time too. I've got a three year old and don't you find too that if he helps me make food, make his dinner, he will eat it. It's more likely that he'll eat it because he's seen the whole process that goes into it and he's part of that creation. Oh, that just sounds wonderful. I can't wait to get to that stage. Yeah, I mean, it's a

mess. Don't get me wrong. Yes. I mean, I think there is that. You know, I think so much that I've learned. My mum was a nutritionist, so my family were farmers in Iran, so I've really grown up around fresh produce and the kitchen and cooking being like an intrinsic part of our livelihoods as well as our kind of lives. And what I definitely believe is that the kitchen and the dining table aren't just a place of sustenance,

they're a place of love and caring and sharing and fun. And, you know, I used to be a human rights worker, I now write cookbooks, I actually see this all part of the same path. I love sharing stories and I just hope that, you know, if readers enjoy vegetarian food, that some of these recipes from Sabzi will bring a little joy to their kitchen. You've in the past worked with people from low income and disadvantaged groups to help them with educate them I guess with healthy eating but also eating on a budget which as we know is tough with the price of food at the moment. What advice can you share on that? Yes I worked for a wonderful charity called Maiden Hackney that provided kind of cooking

classes to low-income groups in London. Now, one of the things I've learned from them is there's been this huge surge in kind of wellness and kind of plant-based cookery, but so much of it is expensive. Like you do not need to use a lot of coconut water and coconut oil and flax seeds to cook good vegetarian food. So my number one chip tip, my number one chip, should have had more for Brekkie, my number one tip is that canned beans are your friends. So step away from just your baked beans. Chickpeas are probably one of the most cheap and versatile ingredients. You can whiz them up in a blender with a bit of tahini to make hummus for like a fraction of the price of what you'd buy in the

supermarket. You can cook them in a stew, you know, two tins or feed a family of four. You can kind of sub them into pasta dishes. There's loads in the Middle East actually of mixing kind of lentils and pulses and beans in with pasta. Actually my little girl loves that, she loves a bean and pasta dish that we make. So that's my thrifty tip for veg cooking. And also those cans of chickpeas and stuff you can keep in the cupboard for ages. Exactly. Can't you? And it is this whole, it is an issue when you're a busy parent or in fact if you know you're just busy with work and life. It is hard to make sure that you're kind of eating well and doing all of that, isn't it, together?

Honestly, I had no idea. I have such respect for working parents. I've been blown away about how difficult it is for me as a food professional to cook healthy food every single day. So what are the tips that I have? So batch cooking we all know about, but my little tip around batch cooking is I actually on a weekend, I've got my husband to do that as well, we batch fry onions. So instead of like, you know, like frying an onion often takes about like 20 minutes. You've got the chopping, you've got the cooking, you know, cooked down. Onions are like the base of any

great dish that you want to make, right? If you batch fry onions, say do like three or four at one time at the weekend, it still takes about like 20-30 minutes. You freeze them in portions. It means that mid-week you can chuck them in a pan. You've automatically saved yourself 20 minutes. And still no issue with flavour? No issue with flavour at all. I learnt it from my mum and passing it on to you. I love that. Great tip. Yasmin, it's been so lovely to speak to you and just to say that Yasmin's book, Sabzi, is out now. And also if you've been affected by any of the issues, of course, that we've been discussing, you can go to

the BBC Action Line website for links and information. And in regards to breastfeeding, the NHS advisors, of of course if you have any feeding worries or concerns the best thing to do is to speak to your midwife or your health advisor. Now you might have heard of the crime of cyber flashing. It's when a stranger sends an unsolicited explicit image or video. Musician Anna Downs was sent naked photos and videos by a man called Ben Gunnery last year. She reported it to the police, who took a statement, but were very slow to take it any further. In May, he was found guilty of intentionally sending

the images to cause alarm, distress and humiliation. Early this week, Gunnery was given a two-year community order, including 150 hours of unpaid work. If he re-offends, he'll be sent to prison. Well, Ann Downs joins me now alongside Nicola Goodwin, reporter from BBC Midlands Investigations team. Hello to you both. Hi, Ann. Hello. Anna, can I start with you? Thanks so much for talking about this today. Can you just

tell us why it was important for you to speak out? Well, because first of all, I am a teacher and It's been drummed into me since my training that you just can't behave in that those kind of ways And I just knew that he was still teaching and I just felt that And I just knew that he was still teaching and I just felt that it needed to be investigated and he needed to be stopped from teaching and having that one-to-one interaction with children with behaviour like that. And the other reason really for me is that there's been a lot around toxic masculinity and I didn't want, even though my initial feelings and instincts were to sort of avoid all men,

you know, I didn't want to do that, I didn't want to go down that path because I have great men in my life, I've got two teenage sons, a husband, I have a fantastic father and some really super male friends. I wanted to really call this out to show that these are exceptional circumstances. Not all men are like this. So can you just explain what happened and when you started receiving these images and what your response was? Yes, sure. So in August last year I received a last-minute booking for providing some backing strings in a gig in Windsor and the other violinist called to that gig was Ben so we met for the first time on that gig.

As is common practice in music we exchanged Facebook details so we added each other on Facebook and then after the gig we were just chatting about when we would expect to get paid because that information wasn't forthcoming so obviously we needed to find that out. So that discussion went on for a little while and then I found that the tone started to change somewhat and I knew that Ben was gigging in pubs in the evening, Irish music, and I would be sent streams of messages that were then deleted before I could see the content and then in the morning I'd get a

message saying whoops sorry smashed. Then so I was my my I was sort of starting to get alarm bells about that and then on the 9th of September I had so the day before I'd said oh I've been paid we talked a little bit about that and then I received out of the blue at 20 past 9 in the evening a load of images and videos of a lewd sexual nature. So when, at what point did you contact police about this and what was their response? So I immediately, initially was just stunned really and after I sort of got over my initial, I didn't really want to speak about it at all. After a few days I was like, no, I need to report this.

And so I made an online, I contacted the police online, West Mercia Police, and I was told that someone would come and take a statement that Friday. They didn't turn up, so I chased them. And then they eventually, I made a statement a statement within two weeks. But then after the statement there was just one delay after another. I either didn't get any replies to my messages or I was given an excuse saying, this person is not at work today, he's on annual leave. And then it started to be, we've got to refer it to the Met Police because that's where Ben Gunnery lives but they

can't find his address so we can't transfer it and that went on for about four months. How did that make you feel? I mean like just like I was nothing really, devalued, gaslit, I just felt that they thought I was making a fuss and I was a nuisance. We spoke to BBC journalist Lucy Manning last November on this program who'd gone through a similar experience to yourself and I believe that hearing her had an impact on you. Yes it absolutely did. I mean a lot of my musician friends knew about what was going on and one of them messaged me the day in November when she was interviewed on Jeremy Vine and so I immediately tuned in and then sent a text

which was read out on the Jeremy Vine show. And then you decided to contact your local BBC. Was that in response to hearing that interview with Lucy? I mean partly, yes. So that was sort of in November and then over Christmas nothing was moving forward at all. I'd had contacted my MP who, to be honest, was more helpful than any of the police had been. And then I, because I'm quite a stubborn person, so I was like, I have to move things forward, I'm going to contact the media. So I kind of blitzed. I've got a lot of, I've got in my email account, because I'm a musician and I've promoted concerts and that sort of thing,

I've got quite a few email addresses of media contacts and one of them was Midlands Today and they forwarded it on to Nicola. So Nicola, let's bring you in here, Nicola Goodwin from BBC Midlands investigation team. So when Anna actually contacted you and told you about what was going on, what was your reaction? I thought it was wrong that she hadn't been given the respect that she thought and most people listening will probably wrong that she hadn't been given the respect that she thought and most people listening will probably think that she deserved. I'm also somebody that has quite a lot of stories about violence against women and girls, so I'm aware of the laws

and I knew that cyber flashing had become a new law in January of last year. The first conviction under that law was in March. And very simply, the difference between what happened with laws before and after is that now the crime of cyber flashing is sending the images without permission. Before then, anybody that had been in Anna's position would have had to have proved that they were distressed by receiving such images. So the victim had to do the work bluntly before. Now the crime is sending those images without permission. And it was so clear that that's what had been done.

And Anna had done everything we're advised to do by women's charities and the police. She'd saved the images, she'd blocked him, she'd contacted her local force, West Mercia Police. And yet more than 20 times Anna had made contact with them and the crime still hadn't been transferred to the Met. So I spoke to both forces, within two weeks it had been transferred. And I'm sure Anna will explain, once the Met got hold of it Ben Gunnery was arrested charged and actually had appeared in court within a week. I made a mad dash down from the Midlands to London to see him in court for that first time and then the ball started rolling but we're probably all everybody listening today is aware of the Angelini

report which I know that you discussed quite a lot on Women's Hour. And one of the things that was strongly advised by Lady Angelini in that report is looking at what they call gateway crimes. And that's crimes that they fear could escalate. And cyber flashing as a crime is mentioned at length in her report. So I was surprised that forces across the country didn't have it on their radar. So Anna, what was your response then when things actually did start progressing? I mean it was an amazing feeling really because for so long I kind of thought this is going nowhere but I'm determined to keep pushing it. And then I was actually teaching and I had a phone call from the Met Police to say that he'd been arrested and that he had spent the night in custody and that people would then get in touch with me, which they did.

And then it was just kind of like a feeling of validation, you know, that somebody was actually listening and taking it seriously. It was quite profound. He was found guilty but given a community order, how did you feel about that? Well, I went to court on Tuesday. Yeah, Tuesday. It's been a long week, sorry. And I read my victim impact statement. I have to say, initially I did hope that he would get a custodial sentence but the community order that he has been given is a robust one, you know, it's two years long and I think a custodial sentence probably would have been short and possibly not as impactful. So I

think and the judge was quite clear that if anything like that happens again from him, he is going to prison. Nicola, is there any kind of data available yet? You mentioned the law change. Is there any kind of evidence of the impact that that has had? Not data yet because it's a very, very early law. But what we have seen is there's been quite a lot of academic studies done by people across the country. Durham University have done a study on this. Working with companies such as YouGov, who did a poll back in 2018, they found that for women born after the year 2000, almost 50% of them had received what they call unwanted and unsolicited images, cyber flashing. And what comes out

in that data and the academic studies is that it tends to be cases like Anna's, people that they might have met once or very prevalent is on public transport where perhaps people turn on their data sharing and then all of a sudden these images pop up. And what the reports highlight is that it is on a phone but the phones are so much part of everyday life now. The invasion and I know Anna feels like this, the invasion that's it's your home almost that it's invading, it's you, it's your personal space and of course for those of us who have phones when an image pops up you haven't accepted that, it's popped up on the

screens even if you don't see it again, it's there. Anna, can you just tell us what, now this has kind of concluded and this sentence has been given, how do you feel now and the impact on your life on receiving these images? Well, I think it's probably going to be quite a slow process for me because you know initially my reaction was I felt really intimidated and I did feel violated my personal space and all of that. I travel alone a lot to do music work and I was thinking twice about doing that sort of thing but I have been really working hard to build my confidence back I think that's going to be a slow process but I'm hoping that now with a sort of some closure on this that I'm going to be able to go further and you know have the confidence not to be

looking over my shoulder all the time. Okay thank you both of you so much for speaking to us. I should just mention that West Mercia Police said it's apologized to Anna and explained why it took some time to transfer the case to Metropolitan Police. An internal review found their service was acceptable. The Met Police said once the case was transferred it acted swiftly and within six days Ben Gunnery had been arrested. Now I can bring you a short snippet of Nula's interview with Helena Bonham Carter from last week for those that missed it. She spoke about her new film which is based on the best-selling book Four Letters of Love. Helena plays Margaret Gore, the wife of a poet living on a remote island.

Here's a flavour from that interview. Good morning. Oh I love it, you're back in your Irish accent again. I don't know how it's going to last because I'm actually, I mean, I did it because I wanted to indulge and pretend to be Irish. Well, you were all daunted by take one. I was completely daunted because I was surrounded by Irish. Because Gabriel Byrne I mentioned and Pierce Brosnan who are Irish, were we? They're Irish.

And Emel De May is? Emel De May, yeah. And then Anne, Skelly and Donald, everyone was Irish. And I was, I'm from North London and you know, posh. So it's like, oh God, I got to be. But I had a really good voice coach and I've always felt very home, even if I didn't sound like in Ireland. You break down the sounds, all the 26 different vowel sounds, you practice them or particularly the ones that don't come naturally to you. You listen, usually pick somebody in particular because there's Irish, you don't just do a general Irish, you also specify. The more precise the better. Changing the way you sound can bring out all bits of yourself

that you never, you know, aren't adornment until you actually make the sounds. So it made me feel all delicious. Beautiful voice. You can hear that full interview by searching for Monday, the 14th of July's programme on BBC Sounds. Now I've been asking you for your experiences of working with your mother or working with your daughter. It's because Imelda Staunton and her daughter Bessie are working together in a play. This one here from Liz says, I worked with my mother when she ran play schemes in a youth club. I could stand behind her saying, mum, mummy, mother, mum, she wouldn't hear me. Yet the minute I whispered Kitty, which I'm presuming is her name, she

would pivot to see who needed her. This one here says, my mum was manager when we worked in social housing together. It was hard to get out of the habit of calling her mum and challenging her authority, but she was a brilliant manager, she says. And this one here, I have worked with my daughter. She is my boss, head of school, and I am a nearly retired chemistry teacher. Thank you so much for all your comments on that. Join me tomorrow when guests include director Elizabeth Lowe who will be talking about her documentary Mistress Dispeller about a woman in China who hires someone to secretly end her husband's extramarital

affair and save her marriage. Very interesting topic. Do join me for that tomorrow if you can. Thank you very much for listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. of Paloma Shemarani, a 23-year-old woman who died of cancer, having rejected chemotherapy in favour of alternative methods. Paloma's brothers say there's more to the story. They say her decision was influenced by the views of their mum, Kate Shemarani, a vocal British conspiracy theorist who shares misinformation about cancer online, a version of events which she disputes. Join me as I try to find out what happened and what Paloma's case tells us about the mainstreaming of anti-medicine ideas.

Listen on BBC Sounds.